Gareth A Davies has been a sports journalist for The Daily Telegraph since 1993. He is Boxing and MMA Correspondent. Has been intrigued by fight and combat sports from a young age. Personal sporting passions are rugby, cricket, and martial arts. Also covers the Paralympic Games. Hates getting his hair cut. Follow on Twitter @GarethADaviesDT

Homage to Bruce Lee: Seattle UFC recalls 40-year anniversary of death of the martial arts master

A visit to Bruce Lee’s grave, the morning after Benson Henderson’s retention of the UFC lightweight belt, in Seattle, was something of an epiphany. I’d been trying to get there all week. I half expected to bump into Ben there, but he was mostly likely in Church.

Lake View Cemetery was ten minutes drive from the Seattle city centre hotel. I was indebted to Ali, the Somalian taxi driver who took me there. He’d spoken about his four young children back home, the wire transfers and the visit to see his family only once every eighteen months.

He was from Ogaden, a Somalian region annexed into Ethiopia and the subject of serious strife. We talked Bruce Lee, family, and the weird world on the way to the cemetery. He was also to prove a very good photographer.

It set me wondering how, once MMA has really taken hold in Africa, a conveyor belt of talent is only destined to emerge from there. Time was when an army of boy footballers were ‘meat-marketed’ to European clubs, all seeking streets paved with gold.

The time could come, soon, when MMA draws the same fortune seekers. What MMA has, though, which football clearly does not, is an ethics code which derives from ancient tradition. We were about to see a memorial to that code.

We arrived at Lake View Cemetery. We circled the roads slowly. Over a small hillock, Bruce Lee’s headstone. And next to it, that of his son Brandon Lee. It was cold, and so very, very still there.

Brandon, who was killed accidentally in 1993 during the filming of ‘The Crow’, took the place where his mother, Linda Lee Cadwell, had intended to be buried.

Bruce Lee studied drama and philosophy while at the University of Washington, and he met Linda there.

On July 20, 2013, it was 40 years since Bruce Lee’s death, prematurely from an allergic reaction to an analgesic painkiller, at the age of 32. Brandon was 28 when he was laid to rest next to his father.

‘Your inspiration continues to guide us toward our personal liberation’, read the words on a decorative book placed on the master of Jeet Kune Do’s resting place.

The five films Bruce Lee starred in between 1971 and 1978, the final film ‘The Game of Death’ released posthumously, have become cult in popular culture, and had a powerful influence on a generation.

But Bruce Lee’s way of living, his unofficial fights against challengers and his battles with martial arts authorities in the Chinese community are even more fascinating.

Being there in Seattle had a powerful effect. I found myself saying a prayer. A quiet moment of thought about the influences in life and how we follow certain paths – be they in work, life, thought or deed.

My phone was out of battery; my Flip video camera wouldn’t fire up when I held in the start button. Ali stepped up with his iPhone. He took pictures and even recorded a video as I contemplated at the gravestones. I even raised my hands in a weird way. It wasn’t premeditated.

For me, being there in that place was a reminder of why we do things. How circles complete. How Bruce Lee truly was the founding father of mixing the martial arts, and how his tenets "practicality, flexibility, speed, and efficiency" for combat, ‘The style of no style’, readily applies today.

Look at the likes of Jon Jones, Rory MacDonald and Michael McDonald, and how they are today. Those four tenets could apply to them. In their fighting styles, at least.

Bruce Lee died 40 years ago this week, just a few months before 'Enter The Dragon' was released in cinemas to widespread acclaim. This article first appeared in Fighters Only Magazine.